


Ride: Chapter One

by Medeafic, pinto_round_robin



Series: Ride [1]
Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 16:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3903001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medeafic/pseuds/Medeafic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinto_round_robin/pseuds/pinto_round_robin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris has a dream. Zach has a broken heart and no shame.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ride: Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Opening chapter for the Pinto Round Robin fic. 
> 
> **Note: the fic will be posted as a series for ease of posting by multiple authors, but will be reposted as a single chaptered fic once complete.**

Chris is standing on the curb with his arms crossed high on his chest, his hands snug in his armpits like he’d be waving them around Kermit-style if he wasn’t keeping them firmly under control. His eyebrows are raised in anticipation, his grin so intense that Zach wonders his lips haven’t cracked around all those teeth.

“Well?” he says. “Whaddya think?”

Zach looks at Chris’s new baby again. She’s _sleek_ : nothing but curves and animal magnetism, dressed up in fire-engine red with shining silver accessories, and is clearly ready to whisk Chris away and get him into trouble.

“Sexy,” he says awkwardly.

“I _know_ , right?” Chris agrees, and runs a loving hand along her tail. He looks up at Zach with serious eyes. “This, Zachary, is the culmination of my dream. Stage one, anyway.”

Zach can’t help himself. “Your dream is encapsulated by chrome, red paint and a gas tank?”

“Dude,” Chris says, in a don’t-fuck-with-my-dream tone. “This is a 1953 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible. Do you know what that means?”

“Nope. I really, really don’t.”

To Zach’s bewilderment, Chris breaks into song. “See the USA! In your Chevrolet! America’s the greatest land of _alllll!_ ” He throws his arms wide towards the car, and drops onto one knee.

Zach bursts out laughing. “Your dream is nationalistic in design? Oh, Christopher. You might want to keep that under wraps when there are paps around, just saying.”

Chris looks up, exasperated. “It’s the ad. Dinah Shore. America is asking me to call on her, Zach. Road trip. I told you all about this. Just me and the open road.” He smiles blissfully.

“In that car.”

“In this automotive wonder of beauty, grace and horsepower.” Chris stands and dusts off his knee. “Look, I won’t lie to you. I also considered the Caddy El Dorado, but one look at this gorgeous ass—” He lays a loving hand on the Chevy. “I was smitten.”

Something shifts in Zach’s chest. Smitten. There was a time Zach was smitten, before the break-up. Before the _dumping_ , he reminds himself viciously. Before Miles _dumped_ him. At least filming Trek kept his mind off everything. But now they’re down to the last few days of the shoot, and he’s never going to spend as much consecutive time again with his Trek family, and all Chris can talk about is how much he’s looking forward to driving cross-country in his stupid new car.

“Aren’t you going to be lonely?” Zach asks. “All that way on your own, no company?”

“Who says I won’t run across company on the way?” Chris asks, and waggles his eyebrows in a very unappealing manner.

“Gross.”

“Kiss my ass,” Chris says casually, and goes back to molesting the Chevy.

 _He’ll probably fuck that thing up the tailpipe one dark night in Texas_ , Zach thinks spitefully, and is immediately ashamed of himself. Why should he begrudge Chris an adventure, just because Zach got his heart broken? Chris has been nothing but supportive during filming, and he’s put up with a lot of Zach’s bullshit. There have been actual tears, and snot. More snot than Zach would like to admit to. “Well,” he says, pulling his head out of his ass, “I hope you have fun.”

“Jesus, you make it sound like a barium enema. Of course it’s gonna be fun. Lots of time to think, and lots of time to _not_ think, too. Get out of my head. You know?”

Zach chews on his bottom lip for a moment. “That _does_ sound fun. I feel like I’ve spent way too much time in my own head lately, when I’m not in Spock’s.”

Chris squeezes his shoulder. “How are you doing these days?” he asks sympathetically, and it just makes Zach feel sorrier for himself.

“I’m good,” he lies, because maybe he’s not good, but he will be. He will be. He _knows_ he will be, eventually. He pouts a little.

“Man, I’m really sorry about that whole...thing.” Chris squeezes Zach’s shoulder again. His hand feels warm and reassuring, and Zach gives a wan smile at him.

“My fault,” he says. “I went full mid-life crisis on the poor guy.”

Chris lets his arm drop. He takes one shuffling step to the right and shoves his hands in his pockets, staring at the car again. “Um,” he says. “So, yeah, last day tomorrow.”

“Last day,” Zach echoes.

“And then I’m heading out early Thursday morning.”

“Brave. After all that booze the night before?”

Chris gives a shrug, his hands still jammed in his jeans. “I plan to take it easy.”

“Famous last words.”

“Do you think this is _my_ mid-life crisis?” Chris asks suddenly, nodding at the Chevy. “Is this my dick substitute?”

 _Trust me, you don’t need a dick substitute_ , Zach wants to say. He’s seen Chris _au naturel_ enough to feel like he’s qualified to judge. But Chris’s good mood has dissipated, and Zach is pretty sure he’s the one being a Debbie Downer. “Hell, no,” he says. “And even if it is, it’s a better way to deal than the route I picked.”

“I’m really looking forward to it. You know how sometimes you just have to get out of LA?”

Zach nods. He knows. Hence New York. Except he can’t go back there yet, because he sold the loft after the break up, and he doesn’t want to go back just to live in anonymous hotel rooms while he tries to get his shit together. “God, I wish I could come,” he says in a rush.

He catches the cringe Chris gives, the micro-expression that fades into good humor, as though Zach’s just kidding. “Yeah,” Chris laughs, noncommittally, and immediately Zach is struck by a deep desire to do this. To go road tripping with his buddy, to actually see the USA in that hot, sexy Chevrolet.

“Seriously, though,” he says, hating himself a little. He only wants to go because Chris wants to be alone. He’s the worst. The _worst_. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”

“Yeah,” Chris says. “Yeah, that would be, uh. The coolest.”

“ _Seriously_ ,” Zach says again, and his desperation makes Chris blink. “I could, though. I could come with. We could do it together, just us and the open road, like you said.”

“I said _me_ and the open road,” Chris points out, and Zach’s heart drops.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh, okay.”

“It’s just…” Chris starts, and stares at his shoes.

“I get it,” Zach says. “It’s fine. It’s totally fine. You want some time alone, I get it.”

“I mean,” Chris says awkwardly. “You wouldn’t have wifi, most places. Some places not even a phone signal.”

“There’s no wifi in the Peruvian jungle,” Zach replies coldly. “And yet, somehow, I survived.”

Chris takes a deep breath. “Okay. Come with me.”

The guilt hits. “No, no,” Zach says. “I’d be a third wheel. Fifth wheel. Second? Whatever the fuck. You want time alone. I’m just being a jerk, inviting myself along.”

“No, come with me,” Chris says. “Fuck time alone; you were right. Come Arizona I’ll be so lonely I’ll be picking up hitchhikers. Ignoring radio alerts about escaped maximum-security prisoners.”

“No, really, I—”

“You’d actually be doing me a favor. Save my life, Zach. Save me from serial killer hitchhikers. Or, you know, backwater cannibal families. Come with me.”

The thing about Chris is, he’s selfless when it comes to Zach. He would literally give Zach the shirt off his back, the food off his plate, the solo-vacation he’s been planning for half a year.

And the thing about Zach is, he’s wounded and self-involved enough that he’s going to let Chris do it. He’s going to take up the offer he bullied his friend into making, even though he feels like a prize asshole, and even though he’s fully aware he’s just using Chris to feel better about himself. To feel like _someone_ still wants him.

“You mean it?” he asks. _Feed my ego, please_.

“Sure,” Chris says, and his smile this time is full and open and warm. “Yeah. I want you to come. It’ll be epic, man.”

Zach is excited enough that he can quell the protests from the better part of himself. “So, like, what’s the plan? First stop? Have you booked places?”

“Nah. Wherever the wind takes us. Wherever we lay our hats. Mostly seedy motels, I’m assuming.”

“That sounds so fucking good you have no idea.”

Chris shuffles closer, and bumps Zach’s shoulder with his own. “But you know the first thing we have to do?”

“What’s that?”

“Name our ride,” Chris says, looking at the Chevy.

 

 ~*~*~

 

[The Red Chevy](http://www.z-mation.com/phpbb/files/ny_1953_chevy_bel_air_convertible_for_sale_03_120.jpg)

 

 ~*~*~

 


End file.
